Harrington: Golfers don't cheat (unlike French soccer players)

Padraig Harrington is an Irishman and a sportsman, so it's no surprise he has an opinion on France's controversial win over Ireland in the final World Cup qualifying match this week.

(If you haven't seen it yet, France's Thierry Henry used his hand to set up the deciding goal in extra time. With the goal, France earned a 1-1 tie, enough to get them into next year's World Cup and eliminate the Irish. You can see a particularly damning picture of Henry's handball here.)

At the Euro Tour's Dubai World Championship finale, reporters asked Harrington how he felt about Henry's handball considering Harrington plays a sport where players routinely call penalties on themselves.

"Golf has a different attitude," Harrington said. "If somebody makes a mistake and ... putting your hand out as a reaction is a mistake, the great thing in golf is if we do do something wrong, we hold our hand up and say, 'Hey, hang on a second, didn't mean to do that, sorry.' You go back and you take your penalty."

Soccer is obviously a different sport and Harrington said he understood that players don't call penalties on themselves. (Although Henry did say a rematch would be "the fairest solution" to the controversy.) It was what happened after the game that really irked him.

"Celebration of the cheating was particularly galling, and that's as far as it goes," Harrington said.

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The Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington Show continues at BMW Championship

Here we go again. Tiger and Paddy. Paddy and Tiger. With all due respect to vanilla nice guys like Heath Slocum and Steve Stricker and Mark Wilson, the two most compelling figures at this BMW are Tiger and Paddy, just as they’ve been the keynote players over the past month and a half, dating to an unforgettable final nine holes at Firestone. Both of these great champions have been playing golf that is both spectacular and occasionally maddening, setting up a weekend at Cog Hill that has unexpected importance.

Last year both Woods and Harrington were bigger than the FedEx Cup. Tiger missed it altogether following knee surgery but still loomed large in absentia, thanks to his towering performance at Torrey Pines that made every tournament that followed feel anticlimactic.

Harrington knocked around last year’s Cup for a while but his heart wasn’t in it, as his double-dip at the British and PGA Championship had already established him as the player of the year.

This year both Woods and Harrington have come to the Cup with a bigger agenda, and through two rounds at Cog Hill they’ve displayed a palpable intensity and desire. Tiger doesn’t need the money but the FedEx Cup would be a pretty shiny trophy in a majorless season. More immediately, he needs to reestablish himself as the game’s most ruthless closer after his Sunday slipup at the PGA and stunning 72-hole miss at the Barclay’s.

Harrington has not tried to disguise how urgently he needs a victory to salvage his season, and reputation. For 35 holes of this BMW he was perfect — or, at least, bogeyless — but a wild drive on 18 set eyelids rolling again. Harrington salvaged a scrambling bogey but that one bad swing was a reminder of how fragile he has been under the gun this summer.

I expect one of these two to win the tournament. It will be a big story either way, but in some ways the guy who blows it will be more compelling. Stay tuned.

Harrington says big-name 'casualties' are good for FedEx Cup

Padraig Harrington is an Irishman, but he must appreciate the old British Navy toast, "To bloody war and quick promotion." He thinks the elimination of big names from the FedEx Cup will attract more fans to golf's playoffs.

"The modifications [to the FedEx Cup] are a big improvement," Harrington said Wednesday at Cog Hill outside of Chicago, site of Round 3 of the FedEx Cup playoffs. "I think you've got to perform in the FedEx Cup if you want to win the FedEx Cup, and that's important in any playoff system. Anybody who's teeing it up in the FedEx Cup can win it, as Heath Slocum is showing, and that's what you want in a playoff situation."

Harrington himself was a victim of the volatile playoff points system last year, when the two-time major winner was bounced before the Tour Championship. No hard feelings -- that's what happens in a true playoff, Harrington said.

"That's called a playoff, and that's very important, that everybody can win and has a chance of winning, not just a mathematical chance of winning," Harrington said. "Everybody has a chance of winning, and also that big-name players get knocked out. There's no point in having a cutoff if the people that are being put off aren't some of the marquee players, because that makes it more exciting.

"Whoever plays the best in the FedEx Cup series should win the FedEx Cup. That's really what it should be. You know, you do want to see a few casualties. That's what TV is about; you've got to see a few guys knocked out, like I was knocked out last year," Harrington said.

Harrington must have been channeling his inner Vince McMahon on Wednesday because he came up with an idea for the $10 million Tour Championship finale that would make the WWE boss proud.

"I do believe they should give out the cash on the 18th green," Harrington said. "Just sit it there just to have a good look at it. It would be great, like the World Series of Poker. We could take it in a wheelbarrow up to the clubhouse. Anything that falls out, it's the caddie's."

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Vegas makes Woods big favorite at PGA after Bridgestone win

When Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington faced off at the WGC Bridgestone on Sunday, Las Vegas odds makers must have been watching because Tiger and Paddy are almost the only guys who’ve seen their odds of winning the PGA Championship drop in the last week.

Woods opened as an 8 to 5 bet to win the PGA and now a wager on Woods will pay just even money (that means you have to bet $1 to win $1, which for a golf tournament are ridiculously short odds). His Bridgestone co-star Harrington opened at 35 to 1 after his middling British Open and he’s now dropped to 20 to 1 odds, according to Las Vegas sportsbook insider Chuck Esposito. The only other player to drop: white-hot Hunter Mahan, who’s gone from 40 to 1 to 30 to 1.

“Everyone knows Woods is hot right now and the odds drop has been dramatic,” Esposito said. “The next closest player is Phil Mickelson at 12 to 1. Woods is such a favorite that you’re seeing the odds on other guys going up.”

For example, Jim Furyk, Sergio Garcia, Lee Westwood, Kenny Perry and Vijay Singh opened at 20 to 1. They are all 25 to 1 now.

Yearly golf wagering in Las Vegas totals in the low seven figures, according to Esposito, but when Woods is in contention it electrifies the casino crowd.

“Tiger changes the entire complexion of the event,” Esposito said. “If he’s not there, the handle is off 50 percent.”

Odds to win PGA Championship:

Tiger Woods: even
Phil Mickelson: 12 to 1
Padraig Harrington: 20 to 1
Jim Furyk: 25 to 1
Lee Westwood: 25 to 1
Kenny Perry: 25 to 1
Vijay Singh: 25 to 1
Paul Casey: 30 to 1
Hunter Mahan: 30 to 1
Steve Stricker: 30 to 1
Rory McIlroy: 35 to 1
Henrik Stenson: 35 to 1
Ernie Els: 35 to 1
Stewart Cink: 40 to 1
The Field: 5 to 2

Padraig Harrington picks up 30 yards Happy Gilmore-style

Looking for more yards off the tee? C'mon, get Happy.

In a fascinating segment, the Fox Sports Net show Sport Science tests whether the Happy Gilmore's running-start, hockey-style golf swing would actually produce more yards than a traditional drive. (Here's the part where I would give a brief synopsis of the 1996 Adam Sandler movie, but if you haven't seen it you should be reading this web site instead.)

The test subject for Sport Science is probably the least likely Happy Gilmore on the PGA Tour, mild-mannered Irishman and player of the year Padraig Harrington. However, Harrington, who's confessed to being an Eminem fan, might have a touch of the Irish rougue in him. At the Titleist Performance Institute in Oceanside, Calif., Harrington does a picture-perfect Happy Gilmore swing. (His footwork is remarkable, much more impressive than Sandler, who is himself a physically gifted actor.) The best part of all is that the Happy Gilmore swing works. The wider shoulder turn and added swing speed from the running start add 30 yards to Harrington's drives, although he won't break out his Happy swing on Tour because he'd lose to much accuracy. Check it out here:

The Paddy Slam? Harrington trying for third consecutive major

Padraig Harrington, winner of three of the last six majors, is enjoying the relative quiet that has accompanied him to the Masters. On Monday, he played a practice round in front of no more than two dozen fans. (He insisted that the late hour of 5 p.m. and the cool temperatures kept fans away.) On Tuesday, his press conference at the media center had plenty of good seats available.

As recent multiple-major winners go, Harrington's buzz factor in the United States remains fair to middling.

"I'm not too fussed about it," Harrington said. "At the end of the day, I can go back to Ireland and get Tiger Woods-esque treatment there. Tiger coming back from injury to the Masters is a big story, but that's not going to make him play better or me play better. It's not going to give him a shot advantage or give me one."

Harrington looked completely at ease as he spoke, like a man content with his place in the golf world. He has won back-to-back British Opens and the 2008 PGA Championship and become the face of European golf. In Ireland, few athletes are more beloved than Harrington, who is bidding to join Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Ben Hogan as the only players to win three consecutive professional majors.

Harrington, 37, has done commercials and even made speeches to the Dublin's soccer team and Ireland's rugby team.

"The Dublin football team lost to a lower ranked team," Harrington said. "The Irish rubgy team has had great success. I'm on a 50-50 run."

Just a few years ago, Harrington was near the top of the list of best players never to win a major. At times during his PGA Tour career, he wondered if his talent was even comparable to the game's best players. But Harrington dug the answers out of the dirt, outworking competitors by spending hours on the driving range to figure his game out.

"I [used to] have a ton of second-place finishes," Harrington remembered. "And that was used as a stick to beat me with."

No longer. Harrington is now an elite pro, even if he doesn't get the attention in the United States that he does back home. Even England's Lee Westwood was curious about Harrington's recent run of major success.

"Lee Westwood said to me, 'What's all this about the Paddy Slam?'" Harrington said. "'Are you taking up wrestling?'"

Photo: Andrew Redington/Getty Images

All eyes on Tiger Woods, Padraig Harrington pairing at Bay Hill

By Gary Van Sickle
SI Senior Writer

I'll be watching -- brace yourselves for the shock -- the Tiger Woods pairing at 12:55 p.m. off Bay Hill's first tee. The post-surgery Tiger is the whole show in this pre-Masters run-up. He seems pretty confident about where his game is, and he's won at Bay Hill so often it seems like his personal annuity package. So he's the guy to watch, as always. He's paired with Padraig Harrington, who hasn't rounded into peak form yet, and Milwaukee's Mark Wilson, who a lot of people say could be Tiger's only true rival. (All of those people are wise guys.)

I'll also be watching the oddest group, last off the first tee at 2:04. It features Andrew Magee, who apparently hasn't retired to the Golf Channel to spar with Bowtie Boy Alex Miceli after all. Magee, a former champ here, is paired with Jason Day, an Aussie wunderkind, and Ryo Ishikawa, a Japanese wunderkind. Ryo is working hard to learn English. Good luck on catching the sly Magee's penchant for sarcasm. If this group was a movie, it would be "Lost in Translation." Should be fun.

Padraig Harrington: Hard for today's PGA Tour players to be like Arnold Palmer

The PGA Tour's Bay Hill stop is always fun to watch because of host Arnold Palmer and the way you see the genuine admiration guys in their 20s and 30s still have for him. But Padraig Harrington, one of the Tour's most intelligent and observant members, said that while today's pros admire Palmer, they find it difficult to be like him.

"I think Arnold Palmer gave so much of himself to the people, and he was out there, and players, all sports people, are protected more because there's more issues going on," Harrington said. "Now sports people tend to be a bit more aloof and detached, maybe because it's bigger hype, bigger stage to be on, maybe it's because of the way society has moved. I can't give you those answers. But it is a different era, and I don't know if it will ever happen again. Maybe it will."

Harrington's comments come at a time when accessibility has become an important issue on Tour. As the economic outlook has darkened, players are feeling pressure to reach out to fans and sponsors the way Palmer did.

What would Tiger Woods's drink be?

At his press conference Tuesday at Bay Hill, Padraig Harrington said "nobody has taken golf to the level" like Arnold Palmer has, not even Tiger Woods. His evidence? A certain mixture of iced tea and lemonade. Harrington described a recent trip to an Italian restaurant in Florida.

"A guy came up to the bar, and he ordered an Arnold Palmer, and the barman knew what that drink was. Now that's getting to another level. Think about it, you don't go up there and order a Tiger Woods at the bar. ...When the guy ordered it, I thought, maybe you could do it in a golf club, but he's ordered it in a random bar, and the guy, who probably wouldn't know one end of a club from the other, knew what it was."

Sure, Tiger has his own Gatorade, but you can't order that at too many bars. So this begs the question: If there were a Tiger Woods drink, what would be in it? Sergio's tears? Tell us your suggestions in the comments section below.

New year, same old Paddy

Padraig Harrington acts tough (he battled through a wrist injury to win the PGA last August). He plays tough (all three of his major wins required grit and resilience down the stretch). He even looks tough (he arrived this week at Torrey Pines with sutures above and below his right eye, the result of a recent surgery to remove sun spots).

Now if only he could talk tough. When a Wall Street Journal reporter earlier this year asked Harrington about filling the Claret Jug with Guinness, Harrington responded: “I don’t have the most acquired taste for beer. I'm more a man for a Coke.” That’s like a Texan poo-pooing brisket. 

Suds aside, the self-esteem-challenged Irishman has long been driven by a fear of failure, and even winning three of the last six majors hasn’t emboldened him, at least not in press conferences, where he’s still more Spicoli than Ali. 

“Everybody likes to improve their results year to year. It’s going to be difficult in my case this year,” he said Wednesday at the Buick Invitational. “You know, my attitude is, if I keep playing my golf, keep doing my thing, I will go and win majors. Whether that happens the next one I tee it up or happens in two years’ time, that's fine with me.”

Can you imagine Tiger Woods confessing that he’d be cool with not winning another major until 2011? Forget it. You’d be more likely to hear Tiger talk politics than admit that he’d be at peace going 0 for his next 8. Harrington is a different animal, a world-class athlete driven not by unyielding pride and self-assurance but rather a single unnerving thought: “Don’t blow it, laddy.”

As Harrington himself said after last year’s PGA: “The next level for me is about accepting I'm a three-time major winner, taking the confidence from that.” Then again, why mess with success?